KAWS
The Rise of Consumer Culture
For twenty-five years, Brooklyn-based artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly, American, born 1974) has bridged the worlds of art, popular culture, and commerce. Adapting the rules of cultural production and consumption in the twenty-first century, his practice both critiques and participates in consumer culture. Continuing in the tradition of pop art, his influential work crosses painting, sculpture, and printmaking along with fashion, merchandise, and toy production while taking inspiration from art history and popular culture. In his paintings, KAWS deconstructs his appropriation of iconic characters into forms that draw on the tradition of abstract painting. KAWS has exhibited internationally in major museums.
Considered one of the most relevant artists of his generation, KAWS engages audiences beyond the museums and galleries in which he regularly exhibits. His prolific body of influential work straddles the worlds of art and design to include paintings, murals, large-scale sculptures, street art, and graphic and product design. Over the last two decades KAWS has built a successful career with work that consistently shows his formal agility as an artist, as well as his underlying wit, irreverence, and affection for our times. He often draws inspiration and appropriates from pop culture animations to form a unique artistic vocabulary for his works across various mediums.
KAWS is a Brooklyn-based artist and designer who started doing street art in the 1990s. When asked about his moniker, the artist replied, “There’s no meaning to it. It’s just letters that I liked—K-A-W-S. I felt like they always work and function nicely with each other” (B. Donnelly, quoted in T. Maguire, op. cit.). This flippant interest in juxtaposing disparate elements to make something for personal enjoyment can be seen echoed in his early work under the necessary anonymity of street art. Pilfering signs from New York bus stops which he then altered with his distinct visual iconography and returned, the artist quickly made a name for himself thanks to his clear, readable style and his subversive take on commercial culture.
Employing a type of detournement that relies on a viewer’s familiarity with consumer and advertising culture, KAWS is able to reframe the everyday and incite a deeper reading of one’s surroundings. This savvy attention to branding and rebranding has since come full circle as the artist has been hired by some of the same companies he originally defaced. For example, his initial 1995 alteration of the Snoopy and Woodstock characters on a MetLife billboard lead to multiple collaborations with the Peanuts brand and even crossover collaborations with Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo, among others. The artist operates in an interstitial space between the art world and the realm of fashion, advertisement, and toys. Creating limited edition figurines and lending his designs to clothing manufacturers while also showing works like Chum (KCB7) at galleries and museums around the world, KAWS has established himself as a multilayered artist and creative entrepreneur in the vein of Murakami and Warhol.
Transitioning from near-anonymous street art to gallery exhibitions and branded apparel, KAWS has established an upward trajectory that has a complex relationship to his origins and the critique of popular culture. While simultaneously investigating the effects of advertisements and consumerism on society at large, the artist makes nods to those that came before like Warhol, Koons, and other Pop Art stalwarts. Like them, KAWS makes work that is aware of its position within media culture and its perceived complicity. Employing images that are intertwined with many people’s lives (whether they are being used to sell something or as entertainment), the artist is able to establish a familiar entry point with his audience. “[I] found it weird how infused a cartoon could become in people’s lives; the impact it could have, compared to regular politics” (B. Donnelly, “Graffiti Artist Turned Gallery Artist Turned Art Toy Maker, KAWS” Pop, February 2007, pp. 260-265). Creating an extensive commentary on the role of entertainment in everyday life and capitalist culture at large, KAWS investigates the ways popular media influences and integrates into our personal narratives.
Now admired for his larger-than-life sculptures and hardedge paintings that emphasize line and color, KAWS’ cast of hybrid cartoon and human characters are perhaps the strongest examples of his exploration of humanity. His refined graphic language revitalizes figuration with big, bold gestures and keen, playful intricacy. As seen in his collaborations with global brands, KAWS’ imagery possesses a sophisticated humor and reveals a thoughtful interplay with consumer products. Highly sought-after by collectors inside and outside of the art world, KAWS’ artworks, with their broad appeal, establishes him as one of the most prominent artists in today’s culture.
With his distinct aesthetic that has garnered him a devoted international following including more than 3.3 million people on Instagram, KAWS has experienced a meteoric ascent to international recognition, establishing his position as a key player the lexicon of contemporary art. His acclaimed oeuvre has avidly caught the attention of collectors worldwide, as well as industry giants and collaborators such as Nike, Dior and Uniqlo. His practice has been honoured with numerous solo shows around the globe including, most recently, a monumental retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2019-2020), and a current survey titled KAWS: WHAT PARTY at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, which opened on 26 February and runs until 5 September 2021.
KAWS, COMPANION, 2019. An inflatable sculpture installed during the opening ceremony for Hong Kong Contemporary Art Foundation, KAWS: ALONG THE WAY, 3 March – 14 April 2019
Photo Courtesy Lawrence/Agence Fance-Presse – Getty Images
KAWS: WHAT PARTY is a sweeping survey featuring more than one hundred broad-ranging works, such as rarely seen graffiti drawings and notebooks, paintings and sculptures, smaller collectibles, furniture, and monumental installations of his popular COMPANION figures. It also features new pieces made uniquely for the exhibition along with his early-career altered advertisements.
